The sun is low on the horizon, and already, the lampposts set around the property have been lit. Someone had to light each one manually, which means that either the people who live here are still alive … or Death has just killed them.
I shiver at the thought.
“Cold?” Thanatos asks.
I shake my head, even as I wrap my arms around myself. I begin to walk around the house, my eyes catching on the painted tiles that border each window.
“This is where we’re staying?” I ask over my shoulder.
“Mmm,” Death murmurs, which I take for a yes.
I run a hand along the wall, only moving away when I notice the large, prickly cactus plants growing up ahead.
“I wouldn’t go back there if I were you,” Death calls out to me.
To the back of the house?
“Why—？” The word dies on my tongue as I catch sight of movement up ahead.
People are making their way out of the house and towards the trees that surround the property. No one speaks, no one interacts with each other, all of them just robotically march in the same direction.
Just like Death’s skeletons.
A shiver wracks my body.
“Lazarus.” The horseman’s voice holds a world of meaning in it. “Look away.”
“Why?” I say, transfixed by the sight ahead of me. “You’ve never given me the luxury before.”
The ground gives a violent shake, and I barely catch myself from falling. Far in the distance, I hear a deep groan come from the earth itself.
Two hundred feet ahead of me the soil rips open, gaping like the maw of some primeval monster. The group of people I’m watching all seem to be headed straight for that rift in the earth. The first person steps into it, their body slipping from view.
I suck in my scream, even as another person calmly steps off the ledge of soil and into that hole, falling from view. One by one, this property’s former inhabitants do this until every last one of them is gone.
The earth trembles once more and with another rumble the rift seals itself back up.
I stand there for several seconds more, just staring.
“You shouldn’t have looked,” Death says from behind me.
I make a small noise—my horror nearly palpable.
“They were already dead,” he continues.
Like that makes any sort of difference.
Thanatos comes to my side, studying my face. Whatever he sees causes a spark of panic to flare in his eyes.
The land quakes once more, and prickly cacti begin to rise around the perimeter of the property, sealing me and Death inside.
“Why did you do that?” My voice comes out whisper soft.
“I see your fear,” he says. “I won’t let you escape.”
I feel like we’re right back where we started. How do I stop this man? How do I not lose myself or my integrity in the process? I haven’t figured any of it out, and I don’t see how I’m going to. The other horsemen were wrong. There’s no overcoming all the bad blood between us.
I tilt my head. “Would you take me too?” I ask. “If I were to become truly mortal?”
Thanatos’s wings open and resettle. “It does not matter. You are not mort—”
“Would you?” I insist.
He falls quiet, the two of us squared off against one another. Finally, he says, “Lazarus, I wouldn’t have a choice. One brush of my skin—”
“I don’t care about that,” I say. “Would you intentionally kill me if you could, even now?”
He stares at me, those strange and lovely eyes of his particularly tragic.
“Yes, Lazarus, if I could, I would. I must.”
I don’t know why that hurts, but it does. It feels like a knife to my chest.
I look around at the property, then up at the stars, blinking, blinking.
“Kismet, it doesn’t matter—”
My gaze snaps back to him. “You know it matters,” I say. This is the same man who refused Famine his mortality because the Reaper had the wrong motives.
Death flinches at my words. He must see me retreating emotionally because he closes the distance between us, reaching out for me.
“Do not touch me,” I warn him.
Death’s eyes gleam and his wings widen a little behind him in what feels like a weird dominance display—if I knew shit about birds.
“Or what, Lazarus?” he says, his voice unnervingly calm. He takes a step into my space.
“Perhaps we should flip your question around: What would you do, kismet, if you could truly kill me for good?” he demands. “Imagine if my death could cause all of humanity to go back to the way it was, and you could be reunited with your son once more. Would you do it? Would you kill me?”